Search Abstracts | Symposia | Slide Sessions | Poster Sessions
Developing a Reading Comprehension Test: Assessing Component Contribution to Difficulty and Profiling Russian-speaking Schoolchildren Using Eye-Tracking
Poster Session E, Friday, October 2, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, Wangari Maathai
This poster is part of the Sandbox Series.
Marina Norkina1,2, Ruzalina Shajhutdinova3, Irina Tkachenko4, Polina Pavlova1; 1Sirius University of Science and Technology, 2Saint Petersburg State University, 3Kazan Federal University, 4Tilburg University
Reading skill is a key factor in academic achievement and socio-professional adaptation (La Paro & Pianta, 2000; Green & Riddell, 2007). Its effectiveness depends on many factors: word recognition speed and accuracy, alongside text comprehension depth – the ability to extract main ideas, analyze details, and integrate information with prior knowledge. Without timely identification, reading difficulties lead to decreased academic motivation, lower self-esteem, and academic underachievement. Thus, early diagnosis serves as a preventive measure for developing individualized educational trajectories. Although existing studies have revealed reading mechanisms and various assessment tests exist, questions concerning their validity remain open and debated. The scientific novelty of this research is defined by three aspects. Theoretically, the study will expand knowledge by examining eye-movement patterns during sentence reading in Russian-speaking primary school children. New research is necessary because current reading models are predominantly based on Romance and Germanic languages and do not account for linguistic diversity (Siegelman et al., 2022). Methodologically, the study aims to develop and analyze a valid screening method for assessing reading comprehension. It will compare behavioral indicators of reading components and linguistic skills with eye-tracking metrics recorded during naturalistic sentence reading. This methodology enables real-time observation, assessing not only reading outcomes but also underlying processing characteristics. Practically, the significance lies in creating a screening tool to enhance diagnostic reliability. The comprehensive approach, combining created stimuli, advanced statistical analysis, and eye-tracking, will identify specific text features causing difficulties. Additionally, the project will verify the universality of theoretical models developed for English by testing their applicability to Russian, with its distinct morphological and orthographic features. The following expected results are of greatest importance. First, a screening test for assessing reading comprehension in Russian among primary school children will be developed. The practical significance of creating reliable tools lies in the necessity of early identification of difficulties, including dyslexia, comprehension problems, dysgraphia, and dysorthography. Early diagnosis is crucial, as literacy problems can persist into adulthood (Maughan et al., 2020). Second, the theoretical contribution lies in establishing an objective psychophysiological foundation for the screening test. A comparative analysis of eye-movement patterns with cognitive reading metrics will validate the method, minimizing the subjectivity inherent in traditional assessment. Analyzing text processing dynamics will enable the identification of individual student profiles. Analyzing real-time text processing dynamics will enable the identification of individual student profiles. This is essential for developing evidence-based, personalized reading instruction programs.
Topic Areas: Reading, Language Development/Acquisition